IMPALA publishes ten point COVID-19 crisis plan

Pan-European indie label trade group IMPALA has published a ten point
crisis plan to help the independent music community across Europe cope
with the COVID-19 pandemic. The list of ten recommendations for national
governments, European Union institutions and the wider music sector
follow the creation last week of an IMPALA taskforce that brings together representatives of independent music businesses from across the continent.

The music industry was immediately hit, of course, as the first
social distancing measures were introduced in a bid to combat the virus.
Those measures resulted in the live sector firstly curtailing its
activities and then – within a few weeks, sometimes days – going into
full-on shutdown. As those measures have increased, music retail,
physical distribution, studio work and music education have all also
been hit, as have music companies that sell services to people and
businesses in all those areas.

Alongside its ten recommendations, IMPALA notes that “music was one
of the first sectors hit by the crisis”, and that the negative impact is
particularly severe because the music industry is made up of
“predominantly micro-businesses, self-employed workers and freelancers”.
With that in mind IMPALA’s taskforce calls for “a swift and massive
response to ensure music and other cultural sectors can weather through
the storm”.

It goes on: “The aim is for artists and freelance workers to preserve
their livelihood, and for independent companies to stay in business and
continue investing. European cultural and creative sectors account for
4.4% of EU GDP and twelve million full-time jobs. Diversity is their
strength, but also a vulnerability in times of crises”.

Different European governments have responded to the COVID-19 crisis
in different ways and at different speeds. Both in the implementation of
measures to restrict and delay the spread of the disease and in the
announcement of economic packages to support individuals and businesses
negatively impacted by those measures.

With that in mind, IMPALA’s first recommendation is for more
coordination and communication between European countries – both
directly between governments, via EU institutions, and by reps of each
European music industry sharing information about approaches and
initiatives that have proven particularly effective.

In its three demands of national governments across Europe, IMPALA
calls for clear unambiguous rules on things like social distancing and
lockdown; comprehensive short-term economic packages to mitigate the
immediate negative impact of the crisis on all individuals and
businesses; and sector specific compensation plans for those industries
particularly hard hit, such as music and the wider creative sector.

The list of proposed economic measures – some of which have already been
announced in some European countries – include a specific focus on the
need for support for freelancers and the self-employed. A significant
number of people working in music do so on a freelance basis which
creates extra problems in countries like the UK where most of the big
economic measures announced so far are focused on those in formal
employment.

IMPALA’s crisis plan then has three specific recommendations for the
European Union, including increased EU loan guarantees for cultural
sectors and the creation of a specific crisis fund for smaller cultural
businesses. It also says that the EU should “monitor national action and
integrate culture in general EU decisions”.

The three recommendations for the wider music sector put the focus on
how collecting societies, digital platforms and music media can provide
support.

With the former, it says that other societies should follow the lead
of GEMA in Germany in setting up crisis funds for their members, with
the focus on supporting smaller and independent labels, artists,
publishers and songwriters. They should also make available advances and
interest free loan facilities.

As for the streaming services, they too should “introduce crisis
funds for small businesses”, while also “making faster royalty payments,
passing over a higher percentage of revenues to rightsholders,
providing advances to all rightsholders who need them, boosting local
music and artists with playlists, and supporting local social media
campaigns”.

There have been increasing calls from other players in the music
community for the streaming services to instigate measures to support
artists struggling in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, with various
different options proposed, some more realistic than others.

Those calls escalated last week after Netflix announced it had set up
a $100 million fund to support those in the TV sector who had lost
employment after the productions they were working on were put on hold. A
lot of that money will go to support those who had been specifically
working on productions for Netflix itself, although it will also help
fund support for the wider TV production community.

In the US, various digital firms that utilise music – including
Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Tidal, YouTube and Pandora/Sirius XM – have put
money into the special COVID-19 fund set up by the Recording Academy’s
MusiCares charity. Those donations have doubled the size of that fund
from $2 million to $4 million. It remains to be seen if similar gestures
are now made in other markets around the world.

As for more traditional music media, IMPALA’s final recommendation
says that they “should promote local music and artists with increased
music programming, put more focus on independent and local artists, and
promote new local releases as well as local social media campaigns”.

Launching the ten point crisis plan this morning, IMPALA boss Helen
Smith said: “This is a call for urgent action. Small businesses, artists
and freelance workers all need support. A joined-up approach across
Europe is vital. Incentives for future growth are also part of the plan.
No one should get left behind”.

Meanwhile Francesca Trainini, Chair of IMPALA and its COVID-19
taskforce – who is also Vice-President of Italian industry association
PMI – added: “To help achieve an effective safety net, the EU should
monitor what is happening at national level. We also need to map the
results. Italy is just one example where the music sector is crumbling”.